With a flick of her wand, the fountain sculpture segments converged and slid shut with practiced grace.
The sliver of moonlight shrank to a thin line before vanishing entirely. In the oppressive silence of the secret chamber, the eyes of the cat-head carvings on the four walls flickered to life with a spectral glow.
It was time for a bit of Minecraft-style excavation.
In truth, it wasn’t so much digging as it was using witchcraft to compress the loose limestone into a dense, solid mass—much like packing a loose snowball into a hard chunk of ice—thereby clearing a path.
Wang Yue held her wand aloft. Under the influence of her witchcraft, the limestone dissolved and deformed. Silt, clay, and rock fragments were expanded, compressed, repaired, and leveled, forming a square tunnel with stairs that led straight down.
As she shaped the terrain, she delved deeper. After descending two or three hundred meters, she entered a layer of crystalline rock. She was surrounded by dense rock masses composed of white, blue, and orange quartz particles, interspersed with massive vertical subterranean fissures.
Wang Yue continued her descent along one of these fissures.
Biheze’s X-ray vision could penetrate about ten meters of earth. While she couldn’t see directly through the heavy rock to the very root of the mystery, she could locate nearby crevices and use witchcraft to melt through the barriers, jumping from one path to another.
She continued downward for another hundred meters before coming to a halt. A thought nagged at her—this wasn’t working. Wandering around like a headless fly, when would she ever find the actual hidden site? Even if there were structures or hollows hidden deep beneath the earth, they wouldn’t be large enough for her to simply stumble upon by chance.
As she hesitated, a psychedelic stream of blue particles suddenly drifted past her eyes!
She blinked, suddenly realizing the meaning behind the colors Biheze’s divine power allowed her to see. They were the Spiritual Hues of energy volatiles. There had to be a source.
Wang Yue began Tracking the blue current, constantly adjusting her direction. After an indeterminate amount of time, the path ahead suddenly opened up.
Just like Kira Yoshi-lamb, she had discovered the small basin located deep beneath the earth. Whether it was naturally formed or artificially excavated, the sight was magnificent.
Then, she discovered the Blue Lake and the fetal monstrosities floating within its waters.
Wang Yue observed the wrinkled demons with great interest; they looked like insect larvae trapped within pupae. They appeared to possess no self-awareness. Given that they were imprisoned beneath the academy, it wasn’t hard to deduce that the relationship between the demons and the witches was not one of symbiotic gods and believers, but one of slavery and Dominance.
So this was the secret of Balor Academy. These eight unformed monstrosities were the very “demons” the students worshipped daily. They served as tireless workhorses, providing mana to the witches day and night.
Wang Yue wasn’t particularly shocked. She had encountered quite a few deities by now and had even witnessed the terrifying form of Audara Ias. Compared to that, these fetuses were far from impressive—mere small fry.
However, she finally understood why White Fish claimed that revealing the secret would cause the System of Witches to collapse. If the students saw the demons they revered as nothing more than bloated, curled-up prisoners in a state of fetal decay, they would only feel pity. All sense of awe and reverence would vanish instantly.
Wait!
Something was wrong!
Suddenly, a sensation like an electric jolt shot from her tailbone to her scalp! Wang Yue’s eyes widened as she stared blankly at the Blue Lake.
“No… no, that’s impossible…”
Her throat tightened, making it difficult to breathe. Her pupils lost their shape in a fit of sudden terror!
She saw it now. These soft, massive monstrosities weren’t merely floating in the water, nor were they just attached to the inner walls of the lake. They were Aggregate Fruits—growths spawned from the tough, shriveled, wart-like skin flaps protruding from the lake’s lining!
The Blue Lake itself was the organ of a colossal living organism!
Suppressing the tremors in her body and the overwhelming urge to bolt, Wang Yue observed more closely. She thought of a certain source of the Great Old Ones—Lhouctoug!
Lhouctoug: a damp, wart-covered sphere the size of a planet. Its surface was draped in a web of fine tubes, and within that web, egg sacs were nurtured. Every egg contained a larval form of a Great Old One.
Even if it wasn’t Lhouctoug itself, it was an Outer God possessing a similar authority to gestate Great Old Ones!
This Blue Lake wasn’t a real lake at all; it was a stoma on the body of an unspeakable Outer God!
*
Dormitory bathroom.
Wang Yue leaned against the vanity with both hands, her knees pressed together as her legs shook uncontrollably. The floor no longer felt solid; it felt as though it were churning like ocean waves. The illusion made her unable to stand straight.
To think that for dozens of days, she had been jumping back and forth across the body of an Outer God… the thought was absurdly, mockingly ridiculous.
Her first instinct was to flee—to run as far as possible, all the way to the horizon.
